Monday, September 7, 2009

Region 5 Championships.......a Little Discomfort.....

Part 1

Saturday morning I ran into a friend in the rest room. She asked me if she'd told me about the problems she'd had trying to get her mare bred this season. When I answered, "No" she proceeded to tell me all about her ordeal.

It seems she found a Fresian stallion on the internet and decided she'd like to breed her black Arabian mare to this horse. She called the woman owning the horse to make arrangement to bring her mare to this stallion in Salem. The stallion owner said she just so happened to be coming to Washington. Since she'd be in the neighborhood she'd swing by and pick my friend's mare up.

I have to admit as she was telling me this story, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. Just because someone might have the horse you'd like to breed to doesn't mean that person is to be trusted. It would take more for me than a conversation on the phone to allow someone to pick up my mare and take her to a facility I hadn't seen. But I didn't interrupt and let my friend go on with her story.

It seems that when the stallion owner arrived, my friend was in the middle of dealing with another issue. A dog of hers had attacked another dog and this wasn't the first time. My friend was grappling with euthanizing her dog so this stallion owner said she'd take the dog instead. By the time this woman left she had not only my friend's mare but her great Dane as well.

Not long after this my friend was heading to Salem for a horse show. She called this stallion owner to say she'd like to stop in to visit her mare. The woman directed my friend to give her a call when she arrived in town but when that happened, the stallion owner didn't answer her phone........not once during the entire horse show.

By now the friend was beginning to worry. Not being able to check in on her mare caused the alarm bells to ring. I think it was when she received a bill from a vet that she contacted the vet to see if her mare was ok.

The vet's response was the mare was in good weight. That bothered my friend because the mare had been over weight when she left......actually my friend's exact words were "hog fat!" If the mare was in "good" weight now, she had been loosing weight.

According to my friend something about her questions triggered concern in the vet. This vet had only been on the premises when someone met her at the gate and escorted her to the appropriate stall. Other than that she never saw another animal. Now she was beginning to wonder if this had been deliberate. She decided to drop in unannounced.

When the vet made her unscheduled visit, no one was around. She let herself in and took a good look around. From there she contacted the authorities. My friend said she called her and told her she needed to come get her mare. This place was full of badly neglected and starving horses and other animals as well. I don't remember the exact number of horses but it was a big one...........the fresian stallion was one of those horses.

My friend did get her mare back but not her dog. The dog was caught up in the legal system because the friend had relinquished ownership to the stallion owner. She would have to wait for the courts to regain possession of this animal.

As you can imagine my friend was quite upset by this whole turn of events. She has been involved in horse and animal rescues before and is quite emotional about the problem. Having it happen to critters important to her had her pretty distressed.

To be continued..................

A Lot More Discomfort



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4 comments:

  1. That's a good story to read. I feel I wouldn't be naive either, but it pays to be reminded.

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  2. that's really tragic! I guess this is a case where dreams are overriding common sense. I hope all goes well for her and all the rest of the poor animals!

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  3. Wow - scary story!! Good thing the vet was willing to go back and check...

    'Course, I wouldn't have sent a horse to a place I hadn't seen with a woman/man I didn't know... but that is just me...

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  4. Wow, how scary! I'm relieved for your friend, that she got her mare back. Curious...really scary!
    Do you know: 1) was her mare bred? 2) was the stallion in the condition that the newfound information implies? 3) do you have experience regarding the quality of the offspring from a less than healthy stallion?

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